"Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (b. 1813, d. 1855) was a profound and prolific writer in the Danish “golden age” of intellectual and artistic activity. His work crosses the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, literary criticism, devotional literature and fiction. Kierkegaard brought this potent mixture of discourses to bear as social critique and for the purpose of renewing Christian faith within Christendom. At the same time he made many original conceptual contributions to each of the disciplines he employed. He is known as the “father of existentialism”, but at least as important are his critiques of Hegel and of the German romantics, his contributions to the development of modernism, his literary experimentation, his vivid re-presentation of biblical figures to bring out their modern relevance, his invention of key concepts which have been explored and redeployed by thinkers ever since, his interventions in contemporary Danish church politics, and his fervent attempts to analyse and revitalise Christian faith." (from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/)
In the Comments Section, put the following into your own words. Include concepts from the notes in class on May 7th.
"Let us speak further about the wish and thereby about sufferings. Discussion of sufferings can always be beneficial if it addresses not only the self-willfulness of the sorrow but, if possible, addresses the sorrowing person for his up building. It is a legitimate and sympathetic act to dwell properly on the suffering, lest the suffering person become impatient over our superficial discussion in which he does not recognize his suffering, lest he for that reason impatiently thrust aside consolation and be strengthened in double-mindedness. It certainly is one thing to go out into life with the wish when what is wished becomes the deed and the task; it is something else to go out into life away from the wish.
Abraham had to leave his ancestral home an emigrate to an alien nation, where nothing reminded him of what he loved – indeed, sometimes it is no doubt a consolation that nothing calls to mind what one wishes to forget, but it is a bitter consolation for the person who is full of longing. Thus a person can also have a wish that for him contains everything, so that in the hour of the separation, when the pilgrimage begins, it is as if he were emigrating to a foreign country where nothing but the contrast reminds him, by the loss, of what he wished; it can seem to him a as if he were emigrating to a foreign country even if he remains at home perhaps in the same locality – by losing the wish just as among strangers, so that to take leave of the wish seems to him harder and more crucial than to take leave of his senses.
Apart from this wish, even if he still does not move from the spot, his life’s troublesome way is perhaps spent in useless sufferings, for we are speaking of those who suffer essentially, not of those who have the consolation that their sufferings are for the benefit of a good cause, for the benefit of others. It was bound to be thus – the journey to the foreign country was not long; in one moment he was there, there in that strange country where the suffering ones meet, but not those who have ceased to grieve, not those whose tears eternity cannot wipe away, for as an old devotional book so simply and movingly says, “How can God dry your tears in the next world if you have not wept?” Perhaps someone else comes in a different way, but to the same place."
- Søren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong 1993 p. 102-103
In this quote it talks about the sufferings and sorrows that are slowly becoming larger in numbers. Then talks about the wishes in life and how they can go out of your head like that. The topic of alienation is a topic that no one will forget. And it hurts when the strangers around you make the wishes you make harder. People have spent their lives suffering but sometimes the compensation for that is something good comes out of it.
ReplyDeleteKierkegaard is talking about how it is okay to feel sorrow. It can be beneficial to us
ReplyDeleteand can help us learn. If we do not learn for the better then we will suffer and fall into the darkness. It is important that we learn from our sorrow and do not look at them in a negative way. We should learn from them and not waste our time sitting and worrying about what we cannot change. We suffer for a reason and that reason is to learn from the past and change for the better.
Sometimes suffering is essential in life. To suffer for a good means is a virtue. If your goals aren't your own they will lead to the inevitable suffering of life. You will suffer for something you don't believe in. But if your goals are your own authentic goals, your suffering will be a side note. Suffering for your cause is a reality but not an obstacle to those that truly desire to reach their goals. If you want something bad enough and you genuinely believe in it enough, not only will you be willing to work for it, you will be willing to die for it.
ReplyDeleteThe stats of one's comfort whether it may be happiness or suffering is all dependent on oneself. It is subjective to every person based on their own perceptions of the world. The specific things that are certain are those that which are within the real. If self awareness, and knowing within ones own mind. Only oneself can interpret their certainties. There are two types of ways to live life, the aestheticical and the ethical, and if one is focused on getting back to their reality they will not be able to focus on their pleasures and desires. For those who are separated from their existential issues, cannot understand the authenticity of the value of life, until they go back to their realities and confront them. People come to conclusions on their reality in different ways.
ReplyDeleteIf we discuss sorrow it can help people feel better and will help build them up. It is possible that the person could become depressed from talking about their suffering. You should not live life as a wish. Some times we wish that we could forget our past. At times that image in our mind can be a horrible memory that has to stay. Like emigrates we wish that the memory will leave our mind and never come back. When they lose their wish from strangers they can become depressed again, he will also lose his senses. If a person does not move from that spot their live will be spent is useless suffering.It is possible for them to think that their suffering is for a good cause. Sometimes you have to look to someone else or God for help. Sometimes you have to trust God and believe that he will help you.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking about sorrow and failure is important when it results in the person coming to conclusions as to how they can do things better. Thinking about sorrow is important but can be misunderstood if the person in question does not accept the sorrow and end up being unsure about their situation. Going into life with purpose is much different than going without a purpose.
ReplyDeleteSomeone's purpose may engulf all that they hold dear. When the purpose is that important it becomes easier to go through change and leave past situations. Losing purpose is worse than losing the senses because it gives us something to work towards in life.
If you do not follow your purpose and at least attempt to make yourself as good as you can be, your life will be useless. The people who suffer due to not following their purpose are different to those people who learn from their suffering. It is harder to start something than to continue it working. In order to succeed we must experience suffering so that we may learn things which would otherwise not be known to us.
When we talk about our problems in the world it helps to as well mention those that are affected by suffering for if we don't adress this factor the discussion itself holds little help for them. Even if these people are in a position to make authentic choices or not at least bringing attention to these individuals will create progression in some way.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion of sufferings is beneficial when you explain why a person suffers and how they can bounce back.
ReplyDeleteAbraham had to emigrate to a foreign land where nothing came close to reminding him of what he loved at home. In this way people try to cope by making a wish that has everything. When you move into a foreign land nothing but that wish will bring you peace.
Aside from the wish if he doesn't move his life will be spent suffering.
By continuing to move on and have a wish Kierkegaard emphasizes that a person will progress
Suffering is sometimes needed in life. To suffer for a good means is a virtue. If your goals aren't your own they will lead to the inevitable suffering of life. You will suffer for something you don't believe in. But if your goals are your own goals, your suffering will be a side note. Suffering for your cause is a reality but not an obstacle to those that truly desire to reach their goals. If you want something bad enough and you genuinely believe in it , not only will you be willing to work for it, you will be willing to die for it.
ReplyDelete1) Speaking on your sufferings can be a good thing. If you speak well on sufferings, you can actually gain from it. However if others get in the way, the person may not be able to fully realize their suffering, and be mislead. With this single progression, one can live a better life they were destined for, or go down the wrong path.
ReplyDelete2) When someone is going through change, it may be hard for them. However it may be difficult if they loved what they are leaving, or easier if they are longing to go away. If the person keeps their wishes and hopes in their mind it may even help them cope with leaving, and motivate to do better in their path in life.
3) If you stay stagnant, and do not act on that hope, their is no meaning, and the person cannot do what they are called to do. Thus being a "useless suffering." There is a reason for the journey, and you must do what you are supposed to do in your life, to be able to live a good life.
It is helpful to speak of sorrow . It allows one to be open with him or herself. You can actually gain something from it rather than hold it in. Suffering is simply a part of life. The difficult part of life is how you deal with it. The solution is finding a purpose.Finding a purpose allows to find motivation and happiness in smaller things. Suffering for a good cause can be a virtue.At the same time, suffering can cause more self awareness.SO following your purpose will make you the best person you can be.
ReplyDeleteBringing up and talking about the suffering one goes through can be a healthy action. It is only healthy when one speaks about suffering with the intent to help ease the suffering. However there are many objects and people in this world which will make this hard to do and at times healing will become lost. Therefore one has to paths either stay true to self or become lost with the many objects and people who make healing hard.
ReplyDeleteChange is a hard part of life and people are not always ready for it. Those who have desires and dreams may be able to handle change better then those who do not because motivation will be present which will keep them on their path.
Being or becoming stagnant leads to more suffering through decay from the life one is trapped in. The only way to become in trapped or stagnant is to find passion, desire, and moral commitment which comes through inward reflection.
In this quote, Kierkegaard is saying how it is normal to feel sorrow. In a way, it can be beneficial to us and allow us learn from the sorrow and grow from that sorrow. If we do not learn for the better then, we will suffer and fall into darkness. It is important that we learn from our sorrow. We should not look at them in a negative way. We should not waste our time sitting and worrying about what we cannot change. There is a reason for our suffering. That reason is so we can learn from our past and then grow from those experiences.
ReplyDeleteIt is normal when sorrow happens. It's also normal to feel and talk about sorrow. Sorrow could be bring us many things Far as knowledge and even spiritual growth. If we don't have or feel any sorrow we could eventually be going towards a dark path of negativity. We can not change the past, but only learn of our past. Everything has a purpose of happening or being.
ReplyDeleteToday, it is the most helpful to address sorrow publicly. From this activity, we can learn more and more about ourselves. In the nebulousness of life and it's meaning, it is our duty to find purpose. This purpose gives us motivation required to trudge through life's dark points. We can use our purpose to make ourselves the best we can be. Becoming the übermensch is our ultimate goal and becoming it makes us complete.
ReplyDeleteIf we do not learn for the better then we will suffer and fall into the darkness. It is important that we learn from our sorrow and do not look at them in a negative way. It can be beneficial in a way for us to learn from the sorrow and grow from that sorrow. We should not waste our time sitting and worrying about what we cannot change. There is a reason for our suffering. That reason is so we can learn from our past and then grow from those experiences.
ReplyDeleteSuffering may be beneficial if discussed in a particular manner. It is appropriate and proper to dwell about a suffering. It also is important to go into life with a wish and task on how to execute this. Abraham left his house with no reminder of what it was. But, a person can have a wish that can contain everything important to himself, to the extent that no matter where he goes, he will always have a remembrance of home. Finally, the quote “How can God dry your tears in the next world if you have not wept” means that God cannot dry your tears if you have had no sorrow or suffering in the current world. If you have had none of this, then God cannot do this for you, and one could say everyone in their life goes through some sense of sorrow or suffering at some point, often more than once.
ReplyDeleteKierkegaard is speaking on the normality of sorrow. Feeling sorrow can be a learning experience for us. By feeling sorrow we then become knowledgable about what it feel like to feel this sorrow. Also if we do not like the feeling of sorrow, this experience can teach he what not to do in order to not feel it ever again. If we do not learn from these experiences and better ourselves accordingly, we will suffer and fall into darkness. It is important that we learn from our sorrow. We should not look at them in a negative way but as a way of bettering ourselves. There is a reason for our suffering. That reason is so we can learn from our past and then grow from those experiences.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of, or feeling sorrow, according to Kierkegaard, is absolutely a necessity for one to truly connect with themselves and their emotions. If we do feel this sorrow and sadness, it truly allows us to notice and feel the true emotion of sadness and pain, and this is a very important state to know the feeling of. If we cannot gain the knowledge of this experience, we will feel a much worse pain and sadness due to the lack of knowledge on sorrow. Our suffering is all for something, and when we finally feel it, we will know what it is for .
ReplyDeleteIf we do not learn for the better then we will suffer and fall into the darkness. If we do not learn for the better then, we will suffer and fall into darkness. It is important that we learn from our sorrow. We should not look at them in a negative way. We should not waste our time sitting and worrying about what we cannot change. There is a reason for our suffering. That reason is so we can learn from our past and then grow from those experiences.
ReplyDeleteWhen we refuse to learn from these and become better for it we will make a quick decent into darkness. It is only through feeling the sadness and guilt from life do we truly know sadness and guilt. We suffer for a reason so that we may learn and become stronger.
ReplyDelete"Give us a chance to talk further about the wish and along these lines about sufferings. Examination of sufferings can simply be helpful in the event that it addresses the self-unyieldingness of the distress as well as, if conceivable, addresses the grieving individual for his up building. It is a true blue and thoughtful act to harp appropriately on the agony, or the torment individual get to be restless over our shallow talk in which he doesn't perceive his anguish, keeping in mind that he hence anxiously push aside encouragement and be reinforced in twofold mindedness. It unquestionably is one thing to go out into existence with the wish when what is wished turns into the deed and the undertaking; it is another thing to go out into life far from the wish.
ReplyDeleteAbraham needed to leave his inhereted home an emigrate to an outsider country, where nothing helped him to remember what he cherished – for sure, now and then it is undoubtedly a relief that nothing conjures what one wishes to overlook, however it is an intense comfort for the individual who is loaded with yearning. In this manner an individual can likewise have a wish that for him contains everything, so that in the hour of the detachment, when the journey starts, it is as though he were emigrating to an outside nation where only the difference reminds him, by the misfortune, of what he wished; it can appear to him an as though he were emigrating to a remote nation regardless of the possibility that he stays at home maybe in the same area – by losing the wish generally as among outsiders, so that to take leave of the wish appears to him harder and more essential than to take leave of his detects.
Aside from this wish, regardless of the fact that despite everything he doesn't move from the spot, his life's troublesome way is maybe spent in pointless sufferings, for we are discussing the individuals who endure basically, not of the individuals who have the relief that their sufferings are for the advantage of a decent cause, for the advantage of others. It was certain to be subsequently – the excursion to the remote nation was not long; in one minute he was there, there in that peculiar nation where the agony ones meet, yet not the individuals who have stopped to lament, not those whose tears endlessness can't wipe away, for as an old reverential book so just and movingly says, "By what means can God dry your tears in the following scene on the off chance that you have not sobbed?" Perhaps another person arrives in an alternate manner, yet to the same place.